New Project, Second Blog

My final project this semester is to build a bike stand that allows a bike's rear wheel to rotate and spin a blender designed for this purpose.

I'm working in a group with Debbie and Alex, and we even made a new group blog! Come check us out!

We're working with a community youth group in Nicaragua who use their bike-blender to blend smoothies at local soccer games to fundraise for their group. The bike stand they're currently using permanently attaches to the bike and doesn't allow for them to quickly change their bike from stationary to mobile. We're trying to design a stand that is: 

-lightweight 

-easily adjustable to accommodate for different bike designs/widths/heights

-able to be put under the bike by one person

-foldable/transportable

-able to be made with local Nicaraguan materials

-several other things that you'll need to read about in the blog!

If you like bikes, engineering, and lots of brainstorming/prototyping, you'll really love the new blog, appropriately titled Bike Stand Final Project. Final project documentation is due December 9, so until then check in twice weekly (Mondays and Thursdays) to see what we're up to. I guarantee it will be awesome.

Bike Stand Final Project blog.

(Mostly written by me.)

"From Mathematics to Medical Device Design" Lecture

On Wednesday, October 23, from 12:30-1:45, the Engineering Department hosted a talk by Sarah Reed, Associate Program Manager of Farm Design, Inc. I could not attend, but here is the schedule of upcoming seminars if you'd like to prepare for future events.

Sarah Reed has undergraduate degrees in Math, Education, and Geology from University of Colorado at Boulder, and attended City College of San Francisco for Mechanical Engineering in 2006. In 2010 she received her Master's from MIT in Mechanical Engineering and Sustainable Product Design, where she researched as a D'Arbelloff Fellowship Recipient to complete her thesis: "A Study of the Manufacturing and Product Possibilities of Polylactic Acid/Cork Compound." Reed also studied alternative wind turbine blade materials. Reed's research work has contributed to other projects within MIT.

Reed is currently Associate Program Manager at Farm Design, Inc., which provides "complete development services for medical, life sciences, and consumer health companies." Farm specializes "in discovering product opportunities, solving complex problems, and creating intellectual property to expand and protect [their] client's value in the market."

The next lecture will be held on Friday, November 15, from 4-5:30pm in SCI 278. Anita Shukla, Professor of Engineering at Brown University, will be giving a talk titled "Designer Biomaterial Surfaces."

Abstract:

Research in biomaterials is continuing to lead advances in treatments for a variety of critical medical conditions. Dr. Shukla will discuss her research on developing drug delivery coatings that are aimed at treating aspects of traumatic injury including infection. She will also describe her research on designing biomimetic micropatterned surfaces to direct stem cell behavior. In addition, Dr. Shukla will discuss her career path and how she transitioned from studying chemical engineering as an undergraduate and graduate student to becoming a professor focused on biomedical engineering research.

Stove #4: Testing

Fantastic news: our stove did not explode, implode, or inflict injury on anyone or anything!

That being said, it did not heat things up too well.

Assignment: heat up 1000mL of water with 200g of charcoal (from Trader Joe's) (I'm open to product placement deals).

We measured the water temperature in intervals of between three and ten minutes.
Note: Several times during the heating process we removed the charcoal drawer to either check the charcoal or demonstrate our stove. We think this fact might have added to the overall cooling.

Victories:

1. Our chimney worked! We consistently felt heat and saw smoke exiting from the top of the chimney, away from our faces.

2. The stove did not collapse in on itself.

3. The charcoal drawer was plenty big and had space to accommodate much more fuel.

4. Although the stove tilted back an inch or two in the wind, it stayed up and seemed sturdy.

Room for improvement:

1. The drawer had trouble going in all the way and we had to finagle it in, which wasn't easy, since the drawer was super hot. On a second version, we would a) put the door on a hinge, and b) put tracks on the bottom of the stove to guide the drawer in.

2. Both the heat partition and the drawer got too hot to handle, and we had to use gloves. Ideally, we would be able to handle both with bare hands. On a second version, we would use a different, heat-resistant material.

3. The top started to cave in just a tad. Although the heat partition, when it was pushed in, gave the middle of the box support, we ideally would want more structural support in a second version.

4. Some smoke came out the door instead of the desired chimney exit. We could fix this by having a handle attached to the door, not cut out of it.

5. The charcoal didn't have enough air circulation. The stove was too low to the ground to get air up and through the stove. Ideally, we would want the stove on higher legs.

6. The top of the stove was too far away from the charcoal heat to boil the water. On a second version we would make the stove shorter.

Isabella testing the water temperature.

Our fuel drawer with 200g of charcoal and our fire starters.

We were surprised by the discoloration of the sheet metal when the fire started, but apparently that's normal.

In the background of the picture you can see my shoes.

The top of our stove.

You can see the fire through the door- in our next (hypothetical) model we would have a door without holes/windows.

If you're interested in buying this or another stove of a similar quality, please personally deliver cash or check for $390,023 next time you see me (Katie Tingle). Proceeds will be split evenly among me and my partners. We're also available for custom jewelry production (primarily out of sheet metal and Velcro) and the occasional babysitting job.

Stove #3: Final Design

After our cardboard model, we buckled down and measured, cut, folded, riveted, taped, and screwed. The five of us never worked together at one time outside of class. We worked in shifts, mostly coming in two or three at a time. This method led to some confusion, and some re-doing of previous work.




After about 30 combined hours of labor, this glorious beast emerged.




Troubles:
~We had some difficulty riveting the two sides of the aluminium sheet together to make the chimney pipe. Using the machine drill we always got a hole that was too big for rivets. We realized that if we put several layers of tape over the area we wanted drilled, and we made sure the two pieces of metal were super close, we got a nice drill. For the holes that were already too big, we used screws to fasten tightly.

~Chimney: Our original (cardboard) design was bits of triangular prisms connected by tape. Our first metal design was more of a jointed elbow, which didn't stand up and allowed smoke to escape from its joints. Our final design was a simple pipe extending straight up. We might have some smoke leaks around the seal, but we can address that problem in later versions of the stove.

~Riveting: We planned to rivet the sides of the boxes together using the flaps we allotted for that purpose, but at first it was too hard to drill holes, so we used aluminum tape to secure EVERYTHING. When we started using the hand drill (1/8" bit) instead of the machine drill, we could rivet properly and didn't need the tape.

I'm rather pleased with our design and overall result. More importantly, I learned about ~¡400!~ new skills that I feel confident with now, including:

*folding with a giant folding machine*hand drilling*riveting*drafting*brainstorming*machine drilling*wire cutting*teamwork*aluminum taping*first-aid*helping*adapting from inevitable failure to ensure moderate success*

This afternoon we'll test our stoves with real live charcoal.

Stove #2: Cardboard Model

After we brainstormed, we made a cardboard model of our stove. We didn't have to construct the main rectangular body- we used a pre-constructed box (from an Amazon shipment) (I'm open to product placement deals).
We adjusted our initial design as we went along.

We cut out the bottom to improve air flow to the charcoal.

Our heat partition fit quite nicely within the box, and we made a handle to pull it out and in.

The charcoal drawer inserts into the box.

And can be pulled out, too. We added slits on the bottom of the drawer to allow for air flow.

The chimney was tricky business. This cardboard design was a triangular prism that attached to the back of the stove.

We cut out handles from the side for portability.

(Isabella, Luisa, Maria, and Kalyani (the photographer))

Time to break out the sheet metal!

Stove #1: Brainstorm

We brainstormed about a charcoal-burning stove, and we considered the following components that we deemed necessary:

*Air flow to the charcoal

*Smoke control

*Low cost

*Ability to be manufactured locally

*Simple design/not many materials

*Replaceable parts

*Portability (handles)

*Ability to adjust temperature

*User-friendly

We brainstormed the following designs: 

                                               

 

After deliberating, we decided our prominent focuses were the ability to have two different heat temperatures at the same time and removing smoke from the house or cooking area with a chimney.

NOTE: I realize the importance putting clear labels on brainstorming pictures. If you can figure out what we meant by our drawings, you win.

Energy Consumption

Assignment: personal daily energy consumption: document all energy you use over the course of 3 different days.

That's a mighty yet unclear assignment! I interpreted the assignment to mean record the amount of electricity you use. I further made the decision to NOT include any electricity that I couldn't turn off. Therefore, I did not include any energy I used from:

          -building lights other than my room, including dining halls and academic buildings.

          -food preparation (and meals in general).

          -heating/cooling.

If I couldn't turn it off, I didn't count it (with a few exceptions):

Sunday, 9/29
Laptop	8.5 hrs or 30600 s	19.6V x 3.34A = 65.13W	30600 s x 65.13W = 1992978 J
Room light	5 hrs or 18000 s	60W	18000 s x 60W = 1080000 J
iPod charge	9 hrs or 32400 s	5W	32400 s x 5W  = 162000 J
Printer	30 min. or 1800 s	400W	1800 s x 400W = 12000 J
Clock-Radio	24 hrs or 86400 s	28.8W	86400 s x 28.8W = 2488320 J
			Total = 5,735,298 J

Monday, 9/30
Computer in Sci. Cen.	1.5 hrs or 5400 s	~200V x 1.5A = 300W	5400 s x 300W = 1620000 J
Printer	1 hr or 3600 s	400W	3600 s x 400W = 14400 J
Laptop	5.5 hrs or 19800 s	65.13W	19800 s x 65.13W = 1289574 J
Room light	2 hours or 7200 s	60W	7200 s x 60W = 432000 J
iPad charge	3.5 hrs or 12600 s	10W	12600 s x 10W = 126000 J
Clock-Radio	24 hrs or 86400 s	28.8W	86400 s x 28.8W = 2488320 J
			Total = 5,970,294 J

Tuesday, 10/1
Computer in Sci. Cen.	1 hr or 3600 s	~200V x 1.5A = 300W	3600 s x 300W = 1080000 J
Bus	1.5 hrs or 5400 s	180 hp x 746W = 134280W (Thanks to Kalyani and Debbie for the idea to use horsepower)	5400 s x 134280W = 725112000 J
Room light	15 min. or 900 s	60W	900 s x 60W = 54000W
			Total = 726,246,000 J

Grand total = 737,951,592 Joules, or 737, 952 kJ

I admit my method is flawed. Obviously I didn't include food preparation or heating/cooling, which is a major energy/power drain for most households. I also excluded elevatorusage and things like charging my phone, which I didn't need to do during these three days. I also just remembered all the machines I used in the shop during Monday's EXTD 120 class. For everything I forgot, here are nifty websites for looking up wattage.

I did, however, start to make little changes. My room does not have great natural lighting, and I like to have my room light on most of the time, even during the day. Since I started documenting my electricty usage, I started to keep the light off and work in the sunnier part of my room. I've also considered parting with my clock-radio. I unplugged it, as a trial, on Tuesday, but I became really uneasy. An alternate to an electric clock-radio is a battery-powered one, but I figure those are worse. I'm seriously considering this SolarPower Digital Clock by IDEA international.

Transportation uses a surprising amount of energy! Riding the bus in and out of Boston vastly overshadowed any other use, and now I feel guilty about traveling by any vehicular means. I don't think there's much I can change at this point in time; when I need to get into Boston, I need to take the bus. When I get home, though, and I have my own car, I'm going to finagle more carpooling and fewer extraneous trips into town.

Power Estimation

Assignment: Estimate the amount of power used for typical objects: light, TV, computer, car, motorcycle, fridge, oven and radio. Document any sources you used, thought processes, calculations, etc. NO INTERNET.

Radio
Easy peasy. I looked at my radio.

18V, 1.6A
Power = Volts x Amps
Power = 18V x 1.6A
Radio Power = 28.8W

Light
Although the strength wasn't specified in the directions, I found a 60W bulb in the storage closet on my hall.
Light Power = 60W

Computer
Based on the amount of heat my old computer generates because the fan is partially broken, and the heat of a bare light bulb, I'd guess the wattage of my computer is about three bulbs.
Power = 60W x ~3 light bulbs
Computer Power = 180W

Oh wait a minute! I have a computer!

Power = Volts x Amps

Power = 19.5V x 3.34A

Computer Power = 65.13W

TV
Let's assume a 20-inch TV. My computer is 18 inches, and I think a TV would have about the same power, so with rounding I think a TV and computer are similar.
Power = 180W (Computer)
TV Power = 180W

Car- Electric
An electric car probably uses about 10,000 times the power of a light bulb.
Power = 10,000 light bulbs x 60W
Car Power = 600,000W

Motorcycle
A motorcycle is about a third of the size of a car and might use a third of the power.
Power = 600,000W / 3
Motorcycle Power = 200,000W

Fridge
My fridge is about 2' x 4' x 3', or 24 ft sq. If one light bulb energy can freeze two square feet, we'll need approximately 12 light bulbs.
Power = 60W x 10 light bulbs
Fridge Power = 720W

Oven
An Easy Bake oven takes one light bulb to cook a mini-cake. A real oven is probably 20 times hotter.
Power = 60W x 20
Oven Power = 1200W

This estimation and talk of Easy Bake ovens is making me hungry. I'm going to go use my 800W microwave to cook a snack.

Water Challenge #2: Oops I Used Water

Since Monday, my resolve has lessened and I was not an active participant in the water challenge, although I did maintain a few of the easier categories:

Toilet
I used the ones in my dorm, for health reasons.

Hand-washing
I continued using hand-sanitizer after using the restroom to reduce water.

Teeth-brushing
On Monday night I had forgotten to refill my water bottle that I used for brushing my teeth, so I used the tap water and then never went back to the bottle.

Shower
Since I didn't shower on Tuesday (sorry, people in close proximity to me) I used the shower in my dorm twice between last time I posted and now. However, I timed my showers to see how much water I used. The first one lasted 9 minutes, and the second one lasted 4 minutes, since I didn't wash my hair. Total gallons used:

13 minutes x 5 gallons/minute = 65 gallons

Drinking Water
I continued carrying a water bottle that I filled up at dining halls.

Laundry
No laundry this time. Thank you, jeans, for being so unnecessary to wash.
____________________________________________________________________________
On Sunday I joined the Facebook group that Olin created for this challenge. The site wasn't as active as I had hoped, but when I asked the group why they were participating, Alison Shin responded with the following (shared with her permission):

"My motivation has changed over the past week. I chose to participate this year because last year, I didn't even try to take on the challenge due to some personal inconveniences, like the frisbee tournament that was going on that week, but after talking to people who actually completed the challenge, I felt like I was just making up excuses. And this year, when I started the challenge, I realized how wasteful I had been with my water, so I was motivated to actually finish the challenge to get into a more minimal and aware mindset."

I'm really happy to see that she felt more of a commitment during her second time, and that she was motivated beyond a class requirement. If I were to participate in this challenge again, I would try harder. I was very surprised on Thursday when Amy announced that as soon as we left class we couldn't poop in our own dorms. Perhaps with a week of emotional and practical preparation I would have been more willing to put time and effort into garnering an emotional response that this challenge so clearly is meant to elicit.

PackH2O Response

In 2012, companies Impact Economics and Greif developed the PackH2O, a collapsible backpack designed to hold 20 liters of water.

The developers of this pack believe that this backpack will ease women and children's physical strains of carrying 5-gallon buckets or other containers on their heads. The PackH2O is seven times lighter and seven times smaller than an average plastic jerrycan, reducing the physical burden of carrying water.

Source: packh2o.com

Additionally, this pack will keep water cleaner. The pack has a protected spout that keeps the water pure for drinking and hand-washing. The lining of the bag can easily be removed and washed.

This product was designed and tested in Haiti in response to the 2010 earthquake. Greif used local NGO's that consulted local women to develop the PackH2O. The initiative's goal is: Deliver a PackH2O water backpack to every person who needs one.

Besides the pros of this product that are glorified in its website and in the article written by Darren Quick, there are several drawbacks to this product.

First, the cost of the PackH2O is $10 and can only be used by one person- if you have one mother and one child carrying water, the family's expenditure is $20. Plastic buckets cost much less.

Second, reducing the amount of physical strain is a noble goal, but is the small relief provided worth the $10? Women and children are still making the physical trek with effort.

Third, sustainability is untested. This product is new and has only been in the market for several years. While the bag may be "puncture-proof," I couldn't find any section that described how the bag's straps or lining were tested with repeated use, or if the bags remained popular.

Fourth, this solution is for short-term. To make any sort of measurable impact, every single person who needs to transport would need a backpack in a 1:1 ratio. As the PackH2O website mentions, the pack was designed after the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, when clean water was available but distant. In that instant, the people needed an emergency solution, but for a more long-term improvement I think the company should focus on installing pumps or another technology that decreases walking time, not just walking pain.

Overall, this product is well-intentioned but impractical as a long-term solution. If I had $10,000 to spend on addressing water issues in developing countries, I would not apply it towards the PackH2O.

Water Rights and Wrongs Response

Heartstrings, consider yourself tugged. The young people's summary of the United Nations Human Development Report 2006 Beyond Scarcity: Power, poverty, and the global water crisis entitled Water Rights and Wrongs included so many pictures and infographics about heart-wrenching poverty and hopeful goals for the future.

The medium that the contributors chose- flashy colors and basic shapes- is a good way to communicate. I know that may sound like I'm being sarcastic, but I'm not. I slightly scoff at the seemingly unscholarly method of education, and I wouldn't choose this source first when writing a paper, but I remember bits and pieces much more clearly. For example, did you know that:

Now you know.

The poetry was a bit much. Maybe cut that down.

Water Challenge #1: Oops Now I Can't Use Water

I am not the most dedicated to this challenge, and that's okay with me. If you're looking for more participatory statuses, I would recommend my classmates. Click any link.

Toilet
For current medicinal reasons, I decided for my own sanity, safety, and health to let myself off the hook in the toilet category.

Hand-washing
Introducing hand sanitizer into my bathroom eliminates the need to de-germ with water. I figure that saves about 1-2 gallons of water every time.

Teeth-brushing
I keep a bottle of water (refilled elsewhere) in my little bathroom cubby that I use to wet and clean my toothbrush at night and the morning.

Shower
I have twice ventured from my dorm to use the shower. It added at least 20 minutes.

Drinking Water
I have started carrying a water bottle, which is honestly something I should have been doing anyways, considering my propensity for getting dehydrated.

Laundry
Friday, the day after the challenge was announced, was the day I ran out of clean underwear. I used the laundry room in my dorm. I did, however, make myself go up and down the three flights of stairs 8 times instead of the required three.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Plans for next week:
Toilet use, hand-washing, water-drinking, and teeth-brushing will stay the course. I won't need to do laundry again for another two weeks. I might try to shower more outside my dorm; at least once in the science center, once in the KSC, and once in a different dorm. However, I've decided that the one increase in participation will be the following: if I do need/decide to take a shower in my dorm, I'm going to run down to the lake, splash myself with water, and then hike back to my room. I figure that it's not exactly the same as hauling water, but it'll add the time and some of the physical effort of bucketing water.

2006 UN Human Development Report on Water Response

"Of course I wish I were in school. I want to learn to read and to write-- and I want to be there with my friends. But how can I? My mother needs me to get water, and the standpipe here is only open from 10-12. You have to get in line early because so many people come here."

                             -10-year-old girl queuing for water by a standpipe in El Alto, Bolivia (p. 47)

The choice is terrible. Give your daughter an education, or keep her home where she has a bathroom separate from the boys. Proper water availability in school isn't something that is in the front of my mind, usually I think about water at home. Reading the article gave me a wider perspective on the water crisis in cultural institutions besides the home.
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"As already noted, national figures hide large inequalities in coverage between rich and poor and between urban and rural areas. Cost factors help to explain why these inequalities exist. Aid programmes are currently marketing latrines for low-income households for $35-$90.28. On average, these spend 72% of their income on food. Were the remainder of their income to go to the purchase of a latrine, this would imply an enormous diversion of resources from health and education." (p. 127)

 The "aid programmes" in question should consider their market. Even if the materials are available, and even if the product would increase the local economy, the initial cost of the product is simply unreasonable for the area. Researching the feasibility of introducing a new product to "help" low-income households is necessary.
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Out of all the concerns we have, the lack of information available about crucial figures should be a major one. Accomplishing the Millennium development goals is a noble goal, but it'll be hard to figure out when we reach the goal if we don't know where we stand currently.

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Read page 380 in the report, Table 29, and check out Kuwait's stats. Women received the right to vote in 2005, and they still don't have any women in government at ministerial level. I don't exactly want to explore political repression in this engineering class, but it's something I'm going to examine on my own time.

Sharps Container #3

After hearing feedback from Corporate, we added a giant blaring "Sharps! Sharps here" sign on the label.

I don't understand why we need that sign. The container clearly says "DISPOSE OF USED OR BROKEN BLADES HERE."

Objection 1: I can't see what the label says from across the room!
Solution 1a: Walk to the can. You'll need to be within arm's length to use it anyways.
Solution 1b: Be aware of your workspace. If you're going to be using a sharp, you should know where this container is.

Objection 2: It doesn't say sharps! I might accidentally put some radioactive material in it!
Solution 2a: Why are you working with radioactive material in this lab?
Solution 2b: Blades = sharps.
Solution 2c: If you don't know what sort of container to put radioactive material in, I'll give you a hint: it's not a tin can.

Objection 3: The lid might come off, or if I take the lid off I might lose it.
Solution 3a: Fair point. We looked at several other options. We tried a piece of cardboard with a duct tape hinge, but it wasn't secure enough. The best option I saw was a manufactured cover:

House of Cans, Inc.

Unfortunately we didn't have time to order this cover, but I think it's a good idea.